Equipment and procedures have been developed for monitoring various premises and areas that need to be supervised, where a plurality of sensors are installed at different locations within a monitored area. These sensors are configured to measure or observe some metric or parameter of interest, such as temperature, pressure, voltage, light, motion, sound, presence of objects, presence of smoke, and so forth. Some common examples of monitored “areas” that might need to be supervised include public areas such as city streets, public buildings, stadiums, public transportation, and also more proprietary areas such as private residences, land, vehicles, industrial premises, communication networks, etc. It should be noted that a monitored area may be comprised of an infrastructure such as the above-mentioned examples of public transportation and communication networks. The sensors are connected through a communication network to a monitoring centre or the like and report sensor data comprising information about measurements and observations to the monitoring centre, either at regular intervals or triggered by occurrence of an event, e.g. detection of motion, sound, light, temperature rise, etc.
In this disclosure, information delivered from sensors will be referred to as “sensor data” which could be, without limitation, any information related to measurements and observations performed by the sensors, depending on their functionality. Further, the term “monitoring centre” will be used to represent a functional entity or node which receives sensor data from multiple sensors in a monitored area. The monitoring centre may process and evaluate the sensor data and display information thereof on a monitoring equipment such as a monitoring screen or the like.
An example of how such an arrangement for supervision may be realized in practice is illustrated in FIG. 1 where a plurality of sensors “S” are distributed to different positions within a schematically shown monitored area 100, the sensors being configured to perform various measurements and observations at their positions and to report resulting sensor data “D” which is communicated over a communication network 102 to a monitoring centre 104. The sensor data D is communicated over various nodes and links in the network 102 to arrive at the monitoring centre 104 for review and evaluation. Sensor data from the different sensors travels over different paths and routes in the network depending on where the sensors are located in the network.
Information that reflects the sensor data may be displayed on one or more monitoring screens 106a, 106b . . . that can be watched by some staff present on-site at the monitoring centre 104. Such displayed information may include charts with measurement results, a map image, an infrastructure image, any calculations, graphs or compilations made from received sensor data, and so forth. In the field of telecommunication, a monitoring centre called Network Operation Centre, NOC, is sometimes employed for supervision of a communication network based on, among other things, sensor data reported by sensors located at different nodes and links throughout the communication network. The NOC usually also deals with alarms, complaints, etc., coming from users of services in the network.
When an event is detected in the monitored area that in some sense is “abnormal” by somehow deviating from what is considered to be normal conditions, it is usually of interest to investigate the event and monitor how it develops, e.g. to find out if it gets “worse”, more serious or larger in magnitude, and/or to determine whether some action is required to deal with the event and its consequences. Some examples of events that may be considered “abnormal” include fires, accidents, burglary, extreme weather conditions, and equipment malfunction or failure. Before determining what actions need to be taken due to the event, it may be needed to establish some vital facts such as the nature, location, extent, and anticipated consequences of the event.
In this disclosure, the term “abnormal event” is used to represent any event that potentially requires some action to be taken for dealing with the event, such as monitoring or supervising the event and any consequences thereof with increased attention. However, there are some problems associated with the above-described conventional arrangement for supervision. Firstly, it may not be possible to evaluate the event quick enough, e.g., to limit any resulting damages or other negative consequences, and secondly, the information that can be extracted from the reported sensor data may be insufficient or improper for making an accurate evaluation of the event and its consequences and for deciding to take proper actions.